Sub $1/GB for Mushkin Chronos 240GB SSD

[James]

It's finally time for those who said "I'll buy an SSD once it drops below $1/GB".

Mushkin Chronos 240GB SSD for $238

It's using Async NAND. So it's middle of the road of the current 6Gbps SF-2281 based SSD performance ranges, but it's not terrible by any means.

Great for a secondary SSD, or your first if you just want a switch from spinning media.

*Edit: If you do the math, it's officially 99.17 cents per GB.

[kpxgq]

im starting to hit about 90% capacity on my current main SSD... corsair force3 120gb... so im really itching for a 240gb deal... however, i want synchronous nand for the performance jump as well


i do have a spare SSD (corsair force1 120gb)... so im wondering if i can/should just RAID-0 the 2 drives i have for 240GB... anyone know if this would work since one is a sandforce1 SATA2 drive and the other is a sandforce2 SATA3 drive?

[James]

im starting to hit about 90% capacity on my current main SSD... corsair force3 120gb... so im really itching for a 240gb deal... however, i want synchronous nand for the performance jump as well


i do have a spare SSD (corsair force1 120gb)... so im wondering if i can/should just RAID-0 the 2 drives i have for 240GB... anyone know if this would work since one is a sandforce1 SATA2 drive and the other is a sandforce2 SATA3 drive?

You're combined speed will be limited to the slowest in the group, and that's assuming that your controller can regulate properly. It is never really a good thing to mix speeds of drives, even spinning ones.

[kpxgq]

yeah thats what i figure... i will probably sell my 2 drives:
- corsair force3 120gb should fetch about $130
- corsair force1 120gb should fetch about $100

that gives me ~$200 to grab a synchronous nand sandforce3 drive and eat ~$100 or a 180gb synchronous nand drive is around $250

[James]

Both the Sync NAND (Chronos Deluxe) and the aSync NAND (Chronos) drives are estimated to be back in stock tomorrow!!!!!

I'm definitely gonna get one of the Sync NAND's if I can. Even at $278/240GB it's a heck of a deal at $1.16/GB.

[kpxgq]

i was about to jump on this force gt 240gb (sync nand) for $290 deal after rebate... your deal looks better

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233208

[James]

In stock!

[kpxgq]

yeah i grabbed the 240gb chronos (async) for ~$240.. i really wanted a toggle nand version (chronos deluxe, patriot wildfire) but couldnt justify the $50-80 premium... i think i will wait until SATA4 for the next big speed increase... i would like to see sustained 500MB/sec across all benchmarks not just in 1 or 2 scenarios

[James]

High performance model is in stock now!

[kpxgq]

ok time for some benchmarks!


mushkin chronos 240gb in my main rig... not as fast as the deluxe but still blazing!





crucial m4 64gb in my netbook... you can see how much SATA2 and the less NAND chips affects performance here... im guessing it should be double this if i had the 128gb version in my main rig. but check out that ridiculous 4k-64 read test.

[James]

Since it's SATA2 and that score is not possible, did you try a 2nd run to verify? lol

Otherwise, awesome man. Seems like even the "mainstream" chronos is a good deal.

[Vindir]

For anyone wanting the Chronos Deluxe, here is a quick bench done while doing a mint install.

mint@mint ~/Downloads $ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda 
/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   29836 MB in  2.00 seconds = 14934.39 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1102 MB in  3.00 seconds = 366.84 MB/sec

mint@mint ~/Downloads $ sudo ./seeker /dev/sda
Seeker v2.0, 2007-01-15, http://www.linuxinsight.com/how_fast_is_your_disk.html
Benchmarking /dev/sda [228936MB], wait 30 seconds..............................
Results: 7735 seeks/second, 0.13 ms random access time

[mynameis]

I always said I would wait for that price point but I ended up buying a bit before. I do still need one for my laptop though...

[kpxgq]

New egg has the agility 3 240gb for $210 after rebate and includes mass effect 3 ($50 game)

[Vindir]

New egg has the agility 3 240gb for $210 after rebate and includes mass effect 3 ($50 game)

That didn't seem to last the day. It's 250 after rebate now and the mass effect is gone.